ANNOUNCEMENT: 2017 CFCA Awards Nominees

This evening the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) announced the nominees for the awards that they give out this time each year. As a member, I did my part and voted in the first round and now I must choose one from each category below. I’m mostly pleased with the nominees I see here, but of course there’s always some surprises (“Logan” for adapted screenplay) and disappointments (only one nomination for “Columbus”, despite Haley Lu Richardson giving one of the best performances of the year), which is expected. The winners will be announced at our awards dinner this Tuesday and posted after that event. Until then, you can read the official announcement below and be on the lookout for the list of winners….

“Call Me By Your Name” and “The Shape of Water” lead the pack with the most nominations for the group’s awards.

“Call Me By Your Name,” Luca Guadagnino’s acclaimed adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel centered around the unexpected relationship that develops between a 17-year-old and the 24-year-old grad student who comes to live with his family at their villa in Northern Italy during the summer of 1983, proved to be a favorite with members of the Chicago Film Critics Association. The film received the most nominations for the group’s 2017 film awards with eight nods, including Best Picture, Guadagnino for Best Director, James Ivory for Adapted Screenplay and Editing. Co-stars Armie Hammer and Michael Stuhlbarg were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor and young star Timothee Chalamet received dual nominations for Actor and Breakthrough Performer.

Coming in second place in the nomination count with seven was “The Shape of Water,” visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s audacious Cold War-era romantic fantasy about a lonely mute cleaning woman at a mysterious government facility who forms a close kinship with a strange and seemingly terrifying aquatic creature. The film was nominated for Best Picture and del Toro received nods for Director and Original Screenplay (the latter with co-writer Vanessa Taylor) while Sally Hawkins landed in the Best Actress category along with additional citations for Art Direction, Score and Cinematography.

Three very different films tied for third place in nominations with six apiece. “Lady Bird,” Greta Gerwig’s delightful semi-autobiographical look at the relationship between an equally headstrong mother and daughter set over the course of the latter’s senior year in high school, earned Gerwig nominations for Director, Original Screenplay and Promising Filmmaker and respective nods for Actress and Supporting Actress for Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf as well as one for Best Picture. “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s epic recounting of the decisive 1940 Allied rescue operation was received nominations for Best Picture, Director, Art Direction, Editing, Original Score and Cinematography. Finally, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,” a Fifties-set drama following the up-and-down relationship between a celebrated British dressmaker and his latest muse/lover, earned Daniel Day Lewis (who has announced that this film would mark his retirement from the screen) his sixth CFCA nomination for Best Actor as well as nods to Vicky Krieps for Actress, Lesley Manville for Supporting Actress and Anderson for Original Screenplay and additional citations for Art Direction and Original Score.

Among the other films receiving multiple nominations, “The Florida Project” received nods for Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe (his third CFCA nomination), Editing and Cinematography and two slots in the Breakthrough Performer category for newcomers Brooklynn Prince and Bria Vinaite. “Get Out,” the daring combination of horror and social satire earned its creator, Jordan Peele, no less than three nominations for Best Director, Original Screenplay and Breakthrough Filmmaker as well as a fourth for Editing. The visually stunning sci-fi epic “Blade Runner 2049” also received four nominations for Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Original Score and Cinematography.

“Mudbound,” the searing and racially charged drama about the intertwining lives of two sharecropping families in the Mississippi Delta in the 1940s, received nominations for Mary J. Blige for Supporting Actress, Jason Mitchell for Supporting Actor, Virgil Williams and Dee Rees for Adapted Screenplay as well as for Best Cinematography. “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” the scabrous dark comedy about an angry woman seeking justice for her murdered daughter won nominations for Frances McDormand for Best Actress, Sam Rockwell for Supporting Actor and Martin McDonagh for Original Screenplay and the film itself was nominated for Best Picture. This is McDormand’s fourth CFCA nomination. She has won the other three times she was nominated for “Fargo”, “Almost Famous” and “Mississippi Burning.” Holly Hunter also received her fourth CFCA nomination for her supporting work in “The Big Sick” which also garnered a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanijani who based the film upon their real-life romance.

Now in its 28th year, the CFCA will announce its winners during their year-end awards dinner to be held on the evening of December 12, 2017. Follow @ChicagoCritics on Twitter for the real-time announcements.